Evidence Based Practice: Tuberculosis - Term Paper Example

Only on StudentShare

Extract of sampleEvidence Based Practice: Tuberculosis

What this means is that several people can contract the disease in a short time. Tuberculosis, or TB as it is popularly known, is a disease that is very difficult to treat and cope with. TB patients exhibit a myriad of symptoms, some of which resemble the symptoms of other diseases (Langendam, Van der Warf, Sandgren, & Manissero, 2012). No wonder TB patients have often been assumed to be automatic HIV patients by many communities. Some of the most common signs of TB include difficulty in breathing, chest pains, fever, fatigue, chills, shortness of breath, loss of appetite, loss of weight, night sweats, and finger clubbing. There are two main variants of TB – pulmonary and extrapulmonary (Langendam, Van der Warf, Sandgren, & Manissero, 2012). In the former case, the lungs are mostly involved, chest pains and serious and prolonged coughs with sputum being the common signs of the disease. In addition, the patient may cough up blood in small or large quantities, depending on the level of infection. In the case of extrapulmonary TB, focus is on other parts of the body, excluding the respiratory system (Menzies, Pai, & Comstock, 2007). This form of TB may spread to the joints and bones, nervous system, lymphatic system, or genitourinary system. Some of the symptoms and signs of the disease are shared with other diseases, such as AIDS, as previously hinted. ...

Summary

Tuberculosis Name Institution Tuberculosis During my clinical care of the last semester, I had the opportunity to handle patients suffering from tuberculosis and AIDS. As a result, I learnt a lot about the dreaded diseases, their causes, symptoms, treatments, and ways of spreading…